IVC Filters

Since the launch of IVC filters in 2005, the FDA has received thousands of adverse reports of filters causing death or serious injuries and breaking off or migrating in the body. The IVC Filter lawyers at the Feather Law Firm are accepting cases involving these filters and the harm they cause.

WHAT ARE IVC FILTERS?

IVC Filters are small, cone shaped devices that are planted into the human body to prevent blood clots. They’re designed to catch an “embolism”, a sort of blood clot that has broken loose from among the deep veins in the leg on its way to one’s heart and lungs. These filters are generally planted as a substitute for patients who suffer adverse reactions to blood-thinning medicines. Most filters are designed to be long-lasting implants, but some have the choice for retrieval.

WHAT HEALTH DANGERS DO IVC FILTERS INTRODUCE?

Problems related to IVC filters are extremely serious. Reports demonstrate the whole filter moves into various parts of the human body and parts of it can break off. Occasionally the filters or parts of them while migrating really puncture the body, such as the patient’s heart or lungs, causing life threatening death or injuries.

While some IVC filters were advertised as being simple to retrieve, this is not the case. Filters are known to shift or tilt in the body, along with migrating and breaking apart, making removal difficult, expensive, and dangerous.

Together with migrating and breaking apart, it is understood that these filters can move or tilt, making removal difficult, expensive, and dangerous. In a 2013 study by the American Medical Association, data showed that the success rate for removal was a dismal 8.5% (58 successes out of 680 attempts). Even worse, some of the reported health complications come from IVC filters actually puncturing the human body.

These are difficulties that are both scary, particularly when considering the great number of IVC filter patients in America nowadays.

THERE ARE TWO MAIN OFFENDERS IN IVC FILTER LITIGATIONS

C.R. Bard and Cook Medical, two of the biggest IVC filter makers, are at the center of causing these issues. Both manufacturing companies create most of the IVC filters that have harmed patients, and there are many claims they misrepresented the efficacy and safety of their apparatus.

CONCEALING INFORMATION FROM THE PEOPLE

Suits reveal that C.R. Bard knew the health risks and incidence of filter malfunctions less than a year after launch of their apparatus. Yet, despite that report, C.R. Bard did not advise the public or the FDA of those risks, and instead told its workers to keep it a secret. The FDA has since issued warnings on several occasions about these filters and the health problems they present.

RECURRENT PROBLEMS WITH RETRIEVABLE FILTERS

The FDA has also since issued several security warnings about the usage of IVC filters that were retrievable. In 2010, an FDA report detailed over 900 reports of adverse events including 70 punctures, 328 apparatus migrations, 56 filter fractures, and 146 embolisms. As a result of this information, the FDA decided that the IVC filters presented hazards of device migration, filter break, and organ puncture, and should be removed as soon as the patient’s risk for blood clots subsided. As the warnings signs from complications commonly come too late the FDA updated its findings in 2014, saying that most IVC devices should be removed early, within the 29th to 54th day after implant.

Some producers have responded to these warnings by creating removal systems for his or her products. Most of them approved and are properly screened. As a result, C.R. Bard’s own removal system cannot currently be used to recover the business’s own IVC filters. Patients need to use an alternate firm’s removal filter, which may not be well suited to the design of the device implanted included.

I HAD AN IVC FILTER IMPLANT – WHAT SHOULD I DO?

If you suffered complications from it or had an IVC filter implant, you might have legal alternatives. The IVC Filter lawyers at the Feather Law Group are reviewing possible cases including any consequent injuries and these filters they cause. For a free consultation and more information regarding your legal choices, please phone us at 1-866-FEATHER. Or if you prefer, please complete our online form at the top of the website and a customer relations representative will be in contact with you promptly.

The information on this website is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.